Monday, August 11, 2014

Intel's 14 nm technology is now qualified and in volume production. Yields of the 14 nm Broadwell chips are now in the healthy range and the further yield improvements are expected as volume ramps up. Intel has three fabs manufacturing or soon to be manufacturing at 14nm: Oregon (2014), Arizona (2014) and Ireland (2015).

Intel also disclosed technical details of its new Broadwell microarchitecture for the first time, including specifications on fin pitch, gate pitch, interconnect pitch and the latest Tri-gate transistors. The 2nd generation Tri-gate transistors offer significantly improved low voltage performance and lower leakage. Intel estimates a better than 2x improvement in performance per watt compared with its current 22 nm technology.

Broadwell, which will be the first of multiple design implemented in 14 nm, will be used for a variety of ultra thin notebooks and tablets expected to hit the market at the end of this year.

"Intel's integrated model – the combination of our design expertise with the best manufacturing process – makes it possible to deliver better performance and lower power to our customers and to consumers," said Rani Borkar, Intel vice president and general manager of product development. "This new microarchitecture is more than a remarkable technical achievement. It is a demonstration of the importance of our outside-in design philosophy that matches our design to customer requirements."

NEC has been selected as the systems supplier for a new Trans-Pacific cable that will boast an initial design capacity of 60 Tbps: 100G x 100 wavelengths x 6 fiber pairs. It is believed to be the largest design capacity on this route.

The FASTER cable will connect the west coast of the United States with two landing stations in Japan. The US$300 million cable is targeted to enter service in Q2 2016.

The project is backed by a consortium of six companies: China Mobile International, China Telecom Global, Global Transit, Google, KDDI and SingTel.

In March 2014, Global Cloud Xchange (formerly Reliance Globalcom) unveiled plans for a new trans-Pacific submarine cable linking California and Japan and designed for flexible access options.

The Pacific Cloud Xchange (PCX) cable will be a four fiber pair system with initial design capacity per fiber pair at 100 x 100 Gbps using next generation Coherent Submarine Fiber. The new system will be ready for service in 2015.

Global Cloud Xchange is currently finalizing its submarine cable vendors and additional partners. Global Cloud Xchange will announce the awarding of the PCX supply contract in second quarter 2014 and expects to bring the system into commercial service in 2015.

Telstra will acquire Ooyala, a Silicon Valley-based provider of video streaming and analytics. Under the deal, Telstra will pay US$270 million to increase its ownership in Ooyala from 23% (fully diluted) to 98%. Telstra had previously invested US$61 million in Ooyala over the past two years.

Ooyala harnesses the power of big data to help broadcasters, operators and media companies build more engaged audiences and monetize video with personalized, interactive experiences for every screen. The analytics helps determine exactly which content should be presented to individual views. The streaming platform provides content management tools, fast transcoding and adaptive bit rate delivery to customized players. The company, which was founded in 2007 and is based in Mountain View, California, is forecasting revenue of US$65m for CY2014. The company has more than 330 employees worldwide and a global footprint of 135 million unique users in nearly 240 countries. Its customers include Telstra, ESPN, Univision, Telegraph Media Group, Dell, Sephora, Foxtel, NBC Universal, Comedy Central, News Corp and The Washington Post.

Ooyala Chief Executive, Jay Fulcher will continue in his current role and Ooyala will become a subsidiary of Telstra and operate as an independent business, retaining its brand, structure and management under the Global Applications and Platforms group.

Telstra Chief Executive Officer, Mr David Thodey, said Telstra’s investment and controlling stake in Ooyala would help build it into a world leading personalised video platform company.

“Ooyala enables broadcasters, operators and media organisations to deliver digital TV and video content, across any device to mass audiences, using analytics to provide recommendations, personalised content and advertising to the end user,” Mr Thodey said.

IBM acquired the operations of Lighthouse Security Group, a provider of cloud security services provider. Financial terms were not disclosed.

Lighthouse Security, which is based in Lincoln, Rhode Island, offers an identity management solution that will be integrated into IBM's managed security services. The Lighthouse platform protects identity and data in an increasingly complex IT environment where more company information is being stored in the cloud and accessed from mobile devices.

The deal follows IBM’s acquisition of CrossIdeas, a privately held provider of security software that governs user access to applications and data across on-premise and cloud environments. CrossIdeas combines business-driven governance and analytics capabilities to give customers greater control for securing enterprises. By integrating the businesses of Lighthouse Security Group and CrossIdeas with IBM’s identity and access management offering, IBM will offer a full suite of security software and services that protect and manage a user’s identity.

XO Communications (XO) will begin offering AWS Direct Connect to enterprises at speeds ranging from 50 to 500 Mbps. This expansion of the AWS Direct Connect relationship is an enhancement to existing direct connections at speeds of 1 and 10 Gbps. The dedicated connections are provided over an IP-VPN.

"XO is pleased to be providing services that support its customers' connections to AWS Direct Connect," said Nicola Jackson, vice president, product and marketing at XO Communications. "Companies of all sizes are now looking for reliable, more secure access to cloud resources through direct connections to AWS. Toward achieving that for our customers, XO is helping companies maximize their network investments with cost-effective connections to the cloud."

Gigamonannounced the appointment of Helmut Wilke as senior vice president of worldwide sales. Prior to Gigamon, Wilke led worldwide sales, partner and operations for Ixia's Network Visibility Solutions as vice president of worldwide sales. Before that, Wilke was the vice president of the US Western Region
Enterprise and Partner Group for Microsoft where he delivered business critical technology solutions to enterprise customers. Wilke also held senior sales positions at Extreme Networks and Sun Microsystems.